A drug-driver was caught after police officers with a bloodhound-like sense of smell caught the whiff of cannabis from their moving vehicle.
Police were on mobile patrol on Evan Street in Stonehaven when the odour of the Class B caught their attention.
Believing the pong was coming from another vehicle, they followed and stopped it, finding Mark Gibb as the driver.
A drug test then proved their noses had been correct as the 45-year-old returned a positive result for cannabis.
Fiscal depute Stephanie Cardow told Aberdeen Sheriff Court the incident happened during the evening of September 16 last year.
She said: “Police were on mobile patrol when they observed a vehicle being driven on Evan Street with a male driver the sole occupant.
“At this time, there was a strong smell of cannabis detected from the vehicle.
“The car was stopped on King’s Road and the accused was identified as the driver.”
Legal limit is ‘arbitrarily low’
A roadside test then returned a positive result for cannabis and Gibb was arrested.
Gibb, of Castle Street, Johnshaven, pled guilty to driving with 9.8 microgrammes of a cannabis metabolite per litre of blood.
The legal limit is 2 microgrammes.
Defence agent Kevin Longino described his client as a “social user of cannabis”.
The lawyer highlighted that legal limit was “arbitrarily low” and pointed out that there was no drug-driving equivalent of the drink-drivers rehabilitation programme.
Sheriff Rhona Wark disqualified Gibb from driving for 12 months and fined him £210.
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